He wasn't surprised when, earlier that day, one of Fiora's assistants had told him that Mr. Fiora would be unavailable until the next millennium, or when the mayor's scheduling secretary had said that he didn't have any openings until after his term expired. Beth Harrell just didn't call him back. It was a refreshing kind of rejection. By the time he'd finished catching up on his other cases, it was nearly eight o'clock.
Mason checked on Mickey Shanahan before leaving for the night. Mickey was behind the bar, gesturing directions to Pete Kirby's trio as they set up for another night. Pete looked at Mickey like he was a blind man directing traffic. Mason decided to take a crack at Kirby's memory.
"Hey, Pete, how you doing, man?" Mason said.
Pete Kirby was a fireplug whose feet barely touched the pedals when he played the piano. He never left home without a black beret that matched his goatee. Kirby moved like a man whose rhythm was always eight to the bar. Mason expected to find his picture in a catalogue of jazz miniatures.
"Everything's cool, Louie my boy. How's my man Blues?" Kirby was the only person who called Mason Louie, a list Mason wasn't anxious to expand.
"He's doing fine, Pete. I understand you were playing Friday night when Jack Cullan came in."
"That's right, I was. Me and the boys wouldn't have stuck around since it was such a shitty night and the joint was empty, but we figured, what the hell, we'll play a set for Blues. Then Cullan comes in with this good-looking broad and the next thing I know, the two of them are playing Frankie and Johnnie."
"Blues tells me he busted up the fight," Mason said.
"That he did. Blues grabbed that old man like he was gonna pile-drive the cat right into the goddamn ground. Don't pay to tussle in Blues's joint," Pete added with a deep laugh. "No, sir, it don't."
"I hear Cullan fought like a cat too. Scratched the hell out of Blues' hands."
Kirby tugged at the corner of his beret and stroked his goatee, measuring his response in a firm meter. "Like I told the detective, I didn't see any of that. Now, you lookin' like your woman just run off with the drummer makes me wish maybe I had, but I just didn't see it. Sorry, Louie."
"Don't worry about it, Pete. It's not important," Mason assured him. а
The parking lot behind the bar was covered in old asphalt that had given birth to potholes big enough to swallow women and children. Blues was an easygoing landlord who believed in deferred maintenance. Mason stepped around the craters, afraid that if he fell into one, no one would find him until spring. His car was parked at the back of the lot; the front end aimed at the alley behind the bar. Though there was a curb between the lot and the street, Mason planned to ignore it. Otherwise, he told himself, what's the point of having a Jeep?
The wind had calmed from its all-day shriek to a steady howl, as if it were whining about working overtime. Though the walk to his car was short, it was long enough for the wind to rake tears from the corners of Mason's eyes. Fine crystals of sleet tattooed his face like asteroid dust, whipping around his right arm as he folded it over his face as a shield. Blues's deferred-maintenance program had extended to the parking lot floodlights that had been burnt out since Thanksgiving. The lights were off in the building across the alley, and the sky had been buttoned down with blackout clouds. Moonlight couldn't have found its way to Mason's dark patch even if it had a map.
Mason crunched his nearly closed eyes even tighter when a pair of high-beam headlights opened up on him like lasers as he reached his Jeep. Another car was parked almost nose-to-nose with his, the sound of its engine muffled by the wind. Heavy boots ground sand and salt into the pavement as a man bigger than Mason's Jeep stepped from the shadows and made his way toward Mason.
"Car trouble?" Mason asked, still unable to make out the man's features.
When he didn't get an answer, Mason's internal windchill hit bottom. His new best friend stepped in front of the headlights casting a nightmare's silhouette. He was wearing a full-length topcoat and a fedora jammed low on his brow.
Mason couldn't see the man's face except for the frozen gray breath that leaked from his mouth like poison gas.
Mason reached for his car door, hoping to put some steel between him and the man, but he was too slow. In the next instant, the man grabbed Mason and spun him around, pinning Mason's face flush to the side of the Jeep, the frozen surface burning Mason's jaw. Mason stiffened, trying to leverage his hands against the Jeep and drive his hips and back against the man, but the side of the Jeep was too slick and the man was too huge. He leaned in hard and close to Mason's face. The wet wool of his topcoat smelled like a dog left too long in the rain and his breath tasted of coffee, cigarettes, and licorice. He'd been standing in the storm waiting for Mason.
"You get one chance, you understand that?" the man said.
